


Drift

by Nope



Series: Companionverse [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-28
Updated: 2007-12-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 13:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Everything starts somewhere.





	Drift

The sentient equation from planet Delta Delta X had been differentiated out of existence and hardly anyone had died, at least, not horribly, so they counted it as a win and snuck back into the TARDIS while no-one was looking.

"I'm hungry," said the Doctor. "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat!" Dennis agreed. "Can we get tacos? But without the civil war this time!" He was still a bit miffed about the bullet hole in his lucky sombrero.

"Yes! Mexican! Brilliant!" The Doctor enthused, bouncing around the console and whacking things. "I know just the place. The Pangaea Club, London, Earth, twenty-five twelve." Something sparked. He twiddled the turny thing that did stuff, musing, "maybe thirteen, I think twelve was the great hamster invasion."

"What did they invade?" Dennis asked.

"I don't think it was anywhere in particular. Just general invading type movements." The Doctor gestured vaguely as the time rotor began it's usual rise and fall. "The little hamsters joined together into a big hamster with a sword. I never did find out where they kept the sword."

"Maybe they were like Jack and kept it up--"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

"Okay!"

They watched the rotor go up and down, up and down, up and down.

"It's taking a long time!" Dennis said. "Did you set it right?"

"I always set it right," the Doctor complained. Dennis gave him the 'you shouldn't lie to your companions' look. "Mostly always. A lot of the time. Look!" He pointed dramatically. "We're landing."

Dennis, who was incredibly easy to distract, went "ooh!" and bounced over to the scanner to take a look. "It's very grassy for a club!"

"It has a garden," the Doctor said. "You can eat outside in summer. Hopefully we've arrived early enough."

"It's a very big garden!" Dennis said, but the Doctor had already gone outside, so he hurried after him and looked around. It was a very big garden. A very big, wide, grassy plain of a garden. Also, he couldn't see the club at all. "Is it invisible? Is it the Fidelius charm? Do we need to find the secret-keeper?"

"No, no, and no," said the Doctor. "Or possibly yes, yes, and yes."

"That doesn't narrow it down at all!" Dennis complained. He sniffed. "It doesn't smell like London -- it doesn't stink at all!"

"This isn't right," said the Doctor, pulled his glasses out, put them on, and leaned back into the TARDIS to look at the scanner. "That says twenty-five thirteen. Definitely London."

"Is it a glamour or a hologram?" Dennis asked. The Doctor pulled out his sonic-screwdriver to check and Dennis bounced eagerly. "Can I do it? Please?!"

"...fine." The Doctor reluctantly handed it over. "Try not to explode anything, there's a good lad."

"We're in the middle of big grassy field that goes as far as the eye can see," Dennis said, "so I don't think there's anything to explode, expect us and the TARDIS, and the TARDIS is very sturdy and human combustion isn't all that common!"

He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the ground, fiddled the settings and pressed the button. The Doctor took a quick, careful step back, but nothing much happened.

"I'm not getting anything!" Dennis pointed the screwdriver at a rock, which sat there being rock-like, and not at all futzing like a holo-deck would. He pointed it at more rocks with the same lack of effect until the Doctor nabbed it back to save on the batteries.

He picked one of the rocks up, sniffed it, then licked it.

"Does it taste of tacos?" Dennis asked eagerly.

The Doctor stared. "Why on Earth would it--"

"It might be some weird mineral thing that naturally occurs and then the TARDIS might have locked on to the taste and just got a little confused, and then, here we are!"

"No. It doesn't taste of tacos. It tastes of rock. Sedimentary rock. We seem to be on a flood-plain."

"Did we go too far into the future? Maybe global warming happened and the Thames flooded and now London is a field, and if we dig down we'll find St. Paul's and stuff and there will be talking monkeys who blew it all up!"

"Remind me never to take you to the pictures ever again," the Doctor said. "No, I don't think we're in the future. I can't smell any industrial by products in the air and, anyway, London became part of Central City in twenty-three sixty-four. There should be buildings sprawling all across southern England." He tapped the sonic screwdriver against his teeth.

"Did we end up in a parallel time-line where there is nothing but shrimp?"

"Did we explode and crash with no power?" The Doctor asked.

Dennis considered this and then shook his head. "No!"

"Not alternate universes or time-lines then. Dennis, go and check the scanner again."

"Okay!" Dennis bounded back into the TARDIS, sliding to a halt at the console to read the screen carefully, even the tiny parts, and then bounded back out. "It says twenty-five thirteen, just like you said!"

"Right," said the Doctor.

"Only it's set in mega-annum, not years," said Dennis, "and it's negative!"

"Ah," said the Doctor, absently twirling the sonic screwdriver. And then he said, "oh". And there was a long pause and then he said "uh-oh!" and "back in the TARDIS right now go go go" very quickly and then there was a distant rumble and the ground started shaking and he shoved Dennis through and jumped inside just as the grassy plain cracked open underneath them. The TARDIS tilted alarmingly on the outside, although the inside had its own gravity, so they stayed relative-vertical while the world went up and down.

"I feel kinda sea-sick!" Dennis said cheerfully.

"The resonance frequency of the rocks matches that of holo-generators," the Doctor mused. "Congratulations, Dennis. You've invented continental drift."

"Oops?" They watched the super-continent slowly break up around them. "I'm still hungry!"

So they went and had Chinese instead.


End file.
